Upgrading 8800GTX HD5850 or 5870

I game at 1680x1050 (with a 1280x1024 secondary screen), big fan of stalker series (where performance gets marginal at high AF), so the question is what to go for, I can get a 5850 for £225, or a 5870 for £295, obviously the 5870 gives me a bit more overhead for newer games, but is it overkill for my resolution? I'd like the card to last me until after my next cpu upgrade in 12-18 months time and so want a 24month card, don't want to CF so this needs to be a single card solution. I'm happy to lose some quality in the later life of the card to maintain the framerate, but not sure how big a difference this can make. I've only got a 60Hz monitor so does performance beyond 60Hz really count?

If you want a 2 year card, invest in the 5870. That's what I did. I fully plan on it to last 2 years before I buy a new one. If/when I want better performance I'll grab a 2nd to crossfire after another year or more. I'd be worried about the 600W PSU though, since I'd guess your total power demand for the system would be above 500W once a 5870 was installed. You might be safer with 5850, unless you want to upgrade your PSU as well.

I also had a 8800GTX, which lasted me 18 months, and am glad I paid the extra money for it when I grabbed it compared to the GTS.

Think power will be fine, at the wall i'm only pulling 350W with two monitors, speakers etc. and isn't the 8800gtx pulling more power than the 5870 according to the numbers.

5850 @ 1680x1050 is more than enough, you can actually get really high settings on these.um performance difference 5850 vs 5870 on 1680x1050 ? non that you will visually experience. by charts and numbers there may be a few numbers of fps difference but actual game play experience there wont be any.

There have been several weeks worth of research gone into this... still can't reach a decision, hence the question. Was at first going for an MSI 5870 on amazon.co.uk for £285 with a 2-3 month delivery time, at that price i couldn't miss it, but i'm now getting twitchy about whether it will ever end up in stock. Then I found another site where I can get one at that price, inside a week in theory, or the 5850 in stock and dirt cheap... that threw the whole decision making process into disarray.

The waiting period would have also let the green team reveal what they were up to, which again would help make the decision.

Thanks for the help so far, looks like we are 50:50 unless i've been ninja'd.

I don't think the HD5870 is worth the extra money especially at your resolution.

if itwasn't for the techpowerup review showing stalker cs as being mid 50's vs low 60's for the 5870 i'd be with you on that, looking forward to stalker cop with most of the trimmings. Hmmm thanks for the opinion though.

Yeah, outside of Crysis Stalker tends to be one of the roughest games on video cards. It's mostly due to poor coding though. I would look up actual benchmarks for Call of Pripyat before using one game as a deciding factor. Perhaps they've optimized it to a reasonable level like they should have done to begin with or at least for the first sequel.

I say go for the 5870, if it can fit in your case anyway . It is overkill for your resolution right now (I am at 1680x1050 myself), but if you want to be using that card for two years then by that time it will hopefully be adequate to play on high, or at least above medium settings, in most DX11 titles at that time.